Positionality
Of late, I have come across several discussions whose main theme is the issue of positionality: who is saying what, and to what effect. For instance, several essays about the Wendy Doniger case bring up the issue of western academics writing about non-western subjects - while refraining from making unambiguous claims about the writer's intentions, they nevertheless cast aspersions on the same by intermittently evoking 'Orientalism'. So, while we are told that we are not to misconstrue their take on the Doniger case as a critique of her purported 'Orientalist' position, we are constantly nudged in that direction. Similarly, a few critiques of the film Blue Is the Warmest Colour tell us that the director's male gaze produces a rendition of female sexuality that is reductive and exploitative. These critiques excoriate the specifically 'male' depiction of sexually voracious female characters and locate the work within a paradigm of 'male' control o